These `Buddies' Aren't And Likely Never Will Be

September 9, 2005|By Roger Moore Orlando Sentinel

Buddy comedies are like arranging a blind date. You can do your homework before you set them up, figure out their compatibilities to the nth degree, and even give them lots of money to go through with it.

That's no guarantee of success.

Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy are the unlikeliest of "buddies" in The Man. They don't click. There will almost certainly not be a second date. But they do set off just enough sparks to make us see just why this unlikely pairing was attempted in the first place.

One's a cop. The other's a dental supplies salesman.

Guess who plays what?

A mix-up at a gun deal, and the dental dude (Levy, silly) is cornered into helping the ATF agent (Jackson) make a buy and nab the thieves who killed his partner.

The cop's, not the salesman's.

The buddies bicker, dicker, and try to educate each other in the ways of the world. Agent Vann has one motto -- "Never trust anyone." That may be why his marriage failed and he's forever letting his little girl down come visitation time.

Salesman Andy Fidler never met a man "who didn't become a friend, eventually." That will be put to the test when he's dealing with a sadistic Brit gun-runner (Luke Goss of Blade II) on the mean streets of Detroit.

Jackson spends the movie sneering at Levy with either disgust or dismay. He seems as puzzled as we should at seeing him in this sort of piffle at this stage of his career.

Levy's acting has, over the years, been reduced to brilliant turns in Christopher Guest's Best in Show and A Mighty Wind ensemble pieces, and whatever he can get across with his caterpillar eyebrows in mainstream movies such as Bringing Down the House and American Pie.

But this works better than it has any right to. The chattering salesman and the curse-crazy cop never click, but they have their moments. As when the tables are briefly turned and Levy has to pose as the street tough with Jackson as his emasculated sidekick.

Director Les Mayfield has proven he can let chemistry happen (Encino Man), but that he cannot create it in the camera (Blue Streak). With an inane plot, too much violence and too few one-liners, he doesn't have a new franchise here.

THE MAN ** (OUT OF FOUR STARS)

The Orlando Sentinel is a Tribune Co. newspaper.

A dental supplies salesman is cornered into helping an ATF agent nab the thieves who killed his partner.